Vanessa Rolf
Seeking, digging, sifting, mapping, discarding, collating and labelling are visual artist Vanessa Rolf’s attempts to make logic of her chaotic interior world. She traces, cuts and stitches paper and cloth to embed codified shapes and marks to unearth stories. She reworks cotton clothing, canvas, linen and wool felt which speak a familiar tactile language known to us all. Vanessa’s work often takes the form of large layered stitched textile wall based works that reference quilts or clothing, but other smaller works may use the visual vocabulary of archives; boxes, frames or drawers to create intriguing small installations.
Seemingly small, mundane or insignificant moments, objects or places are memorialised: protective pockets hold iron age flints, absent inherited objects are cut from felt, the repetition of mothering becomes a quilted diary of stitched marks, the names of ships sunk in battle are listed on requisitioned German wartime linen, global textile production is translated into patchwork cartograms from charity shop waste fabric. Vanessa’s work asks what we keep, why we keep it and how we use objects to tell stories; and by extension what stories are missing in the curated boxes, the maps and the record cards.
Artist Biography
Vanessa Rolf is a visual artist with a practice that primarily uses cloth and stitch to unearth the empirical layers of meaning that can be obscured by our current dominant ordering systems.
Her work has been shared in exhibitions, is part of national collections and has been created in response to commissions. Vanessa studied at the Royal College of Art 2002-2004, where she became an honorary fellow in 2017.
Alongside her art practice, for 20 years Vanessa has been working in historic buildings, schools, pupil referral units, hospices, refugee centres and art galleries to make as a collective act of enquiry, agency and community building. Her skills bring people together and gently direct the focus, forging new pathways.
Vanessa founded and directed ReachOutRCA, the Royal College of Art’s engagement programme. She initiated National Saturday Art Club at Winchester School of Art and was part of the Engagement team at John Hansard Gallery, Southampton. Vanessa has consulted on engagement practices for Turner Sims Music Concert Hall, Making Space, Royal College of Art Research and The Crafts Council. She works with BA and MA level students at Winchester School of Art, Chichester University, Southampton Solent, Chelsea College of Art and Design (UAL), and University of the Creative Arts, Farnham.
